Sole Tech Quad Jump

October 09, 1999

Eddie Lee phoned me one day and invited me to the Sole Tech Quad Jump on Saturday, May 8. I had previous plans to see Motörhead in concert with backstage passes, but told Eddie I would come anyway¿”I’m going to miss the Motörhead show” was a comment I would repeat a hundred times that day.

On that Saturday morning, I drove up to Snow Summit. To be honest, I was beginning to think this whole thing was pretty goofy¿Sole Technologies (32 Boots, Etnies, éS, Emerica) was attempting to outdo last year’s Triple Jump (a skater, BMXer, and motocross rider all airing over each other), and I was was missing my chance to meet Lemmy.

The day before was supposed to be a practice day, but they were still building the ramp, and Snow Summit’s Chris Gunnarson had worked for hours trying to fix a drainage problem to make the motocross jump work. A traction dilemma coupled with a carburetor problem kept the motocrosser from being able to do it. Now the plan was to have Brian Patch backside tailslide on a skateboard, Joe Rich tabletop (the hard way) over Brian on a BMX bike, Lincoln Ueda frontside air over Joe on a skateboard¿all on a vert ramp¿and Nicolas Droz jump over all of them on his snowboard at a right angle.

After I got off the chairlift that took me to the jump site, I started to warm up to the idea. The runway for Nico’s jump was about four feet wide, and from the takeoff to the landing was about 60 feet. The landing had a small tranny, but was wide enough to be safe. When I stood at the jump and looked across to the landing, I was glad it wasn’t me having to jump. The vert ramp below made the jump seem more like 90 than 60 feet, and the landing looked really short.

Practice on the ramp got underway. Brian, Lincoln, and Joe had dialed their timing (which isn’t an easy thing on a 24-foot-wide ramp), and Nico had landed all his practice jumps. The Motörhead sting was finally gone, I was really getting stoked on the Quad Jump.

Lights, camera, action. Everyone had lined up perfectly¿they nailed the jump four times. It was a big success, and to help celebrate, burritos were served to all. How soon would the opportunity to see Motörhead play come again? Probably a lot sooner than the chance to see a stunt like this. I made the right decision¿thanks, Eddie.